Rolling mill for the production of metal sheets or plates



May 7, 1929.

H. L. DAVIES ET AL ROLLING MILLJIFOR. THE' PRODUCTIGN OF METAL SHEETS OR PLATES 2 Sheets-Sheet Filed Jan. 9, 1926 ilit lilou lll I I I I I a a vewzars: Heifer ZeJkZ/oh/ 241/125 02] IzmueZZ/ em [aunl May 7, 1929.' 1,711,559

ROLLING MILL FOR THE PRODUCTION OF METAL SHEETS OR PLATES H. L. DAVIES ET AL 2 Sheets Sheet 2 Filed Jan. 9, 192

Patented May 7, 1929.

UNITED STATES 1,711,559 PATENT OFFICE.

HEcmon 'LEmn'roN DAVIES, or eo'wEE'ron, NEAR SWANSEA, AND SAMUEL BEES comm, or ABERAVON, "WALES.

ROLLING MILL FOR THE PRODUCTION OF METAL SHEETS R PLATES Application filed January 9, 192%, Serial No. 80,259, and in Great Britain February 2, 1925.

This invention relates to processes and apparatus for the production of metal sheets or plates, according to which thematerial 18 subjected to repeated sequences of operations comprising in each sequence the steps of heating, rolling, doubling and trimming. In the practice at present most generally in use, these successive sequences of operations are performed in a single set of apparatus comprising a furnace, two rolling mills and a doubler and trimmer, each of these subsidiary machine elements being attended to by one or more operators. In such an arrangement, a workpiece has 16 to be operated upon repeatedly by each of the individual machine elements of the apparatus so that necessarily the whole range of operations has to be completed thereon before a second workpiece can be taken in 20 hand. Evidently therefore, only one of the subsidiary machine elements of the apparatus being in operation at a given moment, the other subsidiary machine elements of the set, together with their respective o erators,

remain idle for the greater part roughly three fourths) of the time. This method of working does not make full use of the capabilities of the apparatus and operators, and is consequently wasteful in time and wages, so that itresults in an unnecessarily hig cost of production.

vAn additional source of delay and consequent uneconomical working is to be found in the arrangement of apparatus at present commonly in use, in which the rolling mills, comprising a roughingmill and refinishing mill for each set of apparatus, are arrange in-a plurality of setsalternately a roughing and a finishing mill-upon one common 40 continuous shaft.- It has also 'been pro osed to put'a roughing mill on such shaft beside or between twofinishing mills pro- 'vided with their appropriate accompanying doublers, trimmers etc., but as each of these hinder and the doubler (viz, the operator attending the doubling and trimming apparatus), the behinder,'after the worktirely avoided, i ard to the fact that each roll rolling mills is attended to by two operators, a roller man who attends to the feeding of the material and a behinder who atpiecehas been subjected to the last pass through the mill, cannot pass it on directly to the doubler, but returns it to the roller man, who will then hand it on to the doubler. The roller man is thus taken from his proper work and the feeding of fresh material interrupted while he'is so occupied and while the behinder stands idle for a corresponding period of time. In the finish: I

ing operations (rolling fours and eights) the workpiece is subjected to two passes through the mill so that the waste of time from this cause alone amounts to about 20 to 25%; while for roughing, which requires six passes and for rolling doubles which may require three passes, the loss of time will be proportionately less.

With a view to obviate the objections referred to, which are inimical to economical production of metal sheets and plates, we have in our prior application, No. 746,110, filed October 27, 1924:, disclosed a method and arrangement of apparatus for the performance of the usual four Sequences of operations, whereby boxes or packs of eight sheets are produced, which enables not only all the machine elements of the apparatus to be concurrently employed in the performance of their tasks upon a plurality of workpieces, fed in quick succession from apparatus toapparatus, butwhich also enly forward from operator to operator, so

consequent delay and waste of time are en- Having reg 111g operation consists in a number of passes 'of,the workpiece through the mill and that this number varies with the successive stages,

as for instance, six passes for roughing, three passes for doubles and-two passes for fours or e ghts, it is evident that the opelrations of the sequence vary correspondin I t followsthat in the arrangement proposed in our prior application hereinbefore that back-handling'of the workpiece and i time periods occupied by the several rolling referred to, in which a separate rolling mill is provided for each stage,-the roughing mill will not be able to keep pace with the work performed by the mills of the succeeding stages or in other words the three finishing mills and their operators will not be occupied to the full of their capacities.

The finishing mills might therefore be given additional'work to perform to occupy them for a period equal to the period occupielil by the roughing mill for its appointed tas Based on this consideration, it is the object of'thepresent invention to so arrange the several elements of the apparatus and to so apportion the work to be performed by each of the said elements that thereby more favorable and more economical working conditions are established.

According to the present invention there are provided for the performancefofa com: plete sequence of operations, four furnaces, three rolling mills having separate individual driving shafts and two doublers and so arranged and operated that each of the rolling mills, doublers and trimmers per forms the respective operations of two successive stages to occupy the said elements,

substantially in synchronism, while the Work in consequence of the arrangement of the rolling mills one behind the other passes through and between the different elements of the apparatus and from operator to op,- erator so as to involve the minimum of handling.

In order to attain said synchronism the work to be performed in some of the operatwo of the machine arate furnace, each of the rolling mills and each of the doublers and trimmers] per 1 forms the work of the respective" operations of two succeeding stages. In such arrangement the first rollin mill will performthe rolling of the bars an of the singles, the second the rolling .of the doubles or airs and part of .the four fold sheets, an the third the rolling of the remaining four folds and the ei ht fold sheets, while the first doubler wil double the singles into doubles and part of the two fold sheets into four folds, and the second doubler will double the other part of the two folds into four folds and all the fourfolds into eight fold sheets. The rolling of any individual piece of work at each stage 1s, however, completed by one rollin mill.

;Preferably the ro ling mills .are arranged on' different. shafts placed one behind the other, each being independently driven in the manner described in our aforesaid prior application. This arrangement offers the great advanta e that the behmder can pass the wor piece. directly on to the ignating raw' material (bar) (1),

t at the workpiece on havin ments at present in use.

The rollin mills may, however, be arranged as hit ierto, in alignment on a common shaft, if it should be desired to adapt existing plants for the performance of the I present invention. Obviously the advantage mentioned hereinbefore to be gained from the method of arranging the rolling mills on 1 parallel shafts, would be lost in this alter native arrangement. The accompanying drawings arrangement of the apparatus embodying the invention.

Fig. 1 shows the arrangement of two complete sets of apparatus, each comprising the required number of furnaces, rolling mills illustrative I diagrammatically two forms of and doublers and trimmers, symmetrically arranged in relation to the drivlng means, and having the rolling mills of the two sets which perform the same stages in the sequence of operations coupled in pairs upon parallel shafts.

Fig. 2 shows the arrangement of a single set of apparatus in which the three rolling mills of the set are mounted on a single common shaft.

Either of the two figures illustrates the approximate relative positions of the four furnaces, -A, A A Aflthe three rolling mills B, B B and the doublers and trim-' mers C, O as well as in one of the sets the paths followed by the work ieces in the course of their progress throug the apparatus. The letters and. numerals (R), (1) (2), (4), (8), and (F) marked on the path lines are indicative of the respective stage to which the Work has progressed; des- (8) representing the workpiece 1n smgle, double, four fold or. eight fold sheets respectively, and (F) the metal in its-final 'sta e of boxes or packs of eight sheets.

ioo

s will be seen in Fig. 1, the three shafts D, D D of the three pairsof rolling mills B, B B are each independently driven by means of belts or ropes H, H H respectively from the pulley G mounted onthe shaft of an electrlc motor E.

In Fig. 2 the rolling mills B B, B", are

mounted on the common shaft l), driven by means of the belt or rope drive H", from the source of powerwhich in this case is assumed to be the steam engine E It will be noticed in following the ath R) from'the furnace'A, to rolling attained a predetermined length issues t erefrom in single sheets (.1) is brought to furnace A for reheating and rolling mill B until rol ed to the esired which is again assed throu h the length. It is then sent-on to doubler 0,21

folded in two and forwarded along path (2) to rolling mill B after-having been reheated in furnace A As will be seen the double sheets rolled to required length in mill B are now directed in equal numbers to the doubler C by path (2). and to the doubler C by path (2 where they are folded into fours and brought for reheating along paths (4) and (.4 to the furnaces A and A respectively. The four fold sheets from furnace A are brought to rolling mill 1?) and from furnace A to the rolling mill B from both of which mills they are brought to the doubler G to be folded into eight, and finally reheated in furnace A rolled at B and delivered at $1 in the form'of boxes of eight sheets; t ere is of course no doubling or trimming in this last stage.

The workpieces are obviously brought by the shortest paths from one subsidiary machine element to another and the paths shown in the drawing are merely lines to indicate the start and finish of each travel, as wcllas the direction of feed and delivery in each of the machine elements.

lVe claim 1. A rolling mill installation for producing eight-fold sheets and plates "from metal bars, comprising a mill for rolling the raw bars into singles and for subsequently rolling the singles; a doubler for folding the singles into doubles and for subsequently folding part of the doubles into fours; a, second mill for rolling the doubles and for subsequently rolling part of the fours; a second doubler for folding the remainder of the doubles into fours and for subsequently folding all the fours into eights;

a third mill for rolling the remainder of the fours and for subsequently rolling all the eights; and furnaces for heating the work between the rolling and folding operations.

2. A method of producing multifold metal sheets and bars, comprising the steps of rolling, raw metal bars in a mill while hot i into singles and subsequently rolling the singles in the same mill; folding the singles into doubles in a doubler and subsequently folding part of the doubles in the same doubler into fours; rolling the doubles in a second mill and subsequently rolling part of the fours in said second mill; folding the remainder of the doubles into fours in a second doubler and subsequently folding all the fours into eights in said second doubler, rolling all the eights in a third mill and heating the work between the rolling and folding operations.

HECTOR LEIGHTON DAVIES. SAMUEL REES CUUND. 

